In office space and other commercial environments it is often desired to have access to electrical outlets or other electrical connections at locations located a distance from standard wall outlets. In order to safely accommodate such situations, floor boxes are typically used. These boxes may be located in the floor near or at the location, such as under a work cubicle or near a piece of machinery, where the connection is needed. The electrical connections may be electrical outlets, telephone jacks or data connections used for networking computers.
The prior art includes floor boxes that may be fitted in openings formed in concrete floors often found in commercial building. Such boxes may be set in poured concrete floors, in which case there location is fixed once the concrete sets. If the floor plan changes, thereby requiring connections at different locations, significant effort is involved to relocate or add addition floor boxes. This has become more problematic as the number of power, data and communications lines has increased. Each worker in an office may require various connections to computer networks, power, and telephones. Therefore, a change in floor plan could result in a large number of connection relocations. To address this problem, a modified construction method involves the uses of a raised floor, or access floor, above the concrete slab. This creates a space which is then used as a plenum for HVAC systems. Air is distributed to the habitable or working space through the use of air diffusers positioned in openings in the raised floor which communicate with the plenums. Such construction also provides space to run wiring thought. Electrical floor boxes may be inserted in the openings provided for the air diffusers. This provides a degree of flexibility which permits floor boxes to be moved and positioned with greater ease. However, while the location of the electrical floor boxes may be easily changed, the configuration of the prior art boxes to support various connectors cannot.
One type of floor box used with access floors is a Thomas & Betts base with a AFM-6 access floor module. This floor box can accommodate both power and voice/data connections. However, in order to change the configuration, considerable amount of wiring must be done on site as each connector must be unwired and a new connector wire up. This process is fairly time consuming and expensive.
Other floor outlet boxes are also known in house both power and data connectors. U.S. Pat. No. 6,307,152 discloses a floor box that houses both power connectors and voice/data connectors. The power connections are integrated on a central housing with the voice/data connectors being attachable about the central housing. The central housing and the power connectors are an integral part of the design. Therefore, if only data connectors were necessary for a particular location the power connectors which form part of the central housing would also be included. This creates an added expense due to the non-utilized components. Space is also wasted and only a limited number of voice/data jacks are provided.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,018,126 also discloses a floor box that houses both voice/data and power connectors. The box may be inserted in a hole in the floor which connects with a plenum. The connectors are attached to a central plate. The plate supports one standard duplex power outlet an four voice/data jacks. The ability to delete the voice/data connectors and increase the number of power outlets does not exist. An installer has little flexibility on site to configure the floor box to address a specific connection requirement.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a termination module for housing electrical connectors which can be easily configured on-site to accommodate a particular connection requirement.